Rosebery sprang from his chair and headed for the door.
‘I must see the Prime Minister at once. You’d better come too, Francis. Maybe the Government can save the day. But I doubt it. I very much doubt it.’
There were over two hundred passengers on the Dublin to Liverpool boat. It had been a rough passage. Many of them had not slept, walking round the decks all night until dawn
greeted them over the dull grey coast of England. Pale-faced and tired, they carried themselves and their luggage down the gangplank and off to the waiting trains.
At the bottom of the gangplank were two burly constables, and behind them two agents from Dominic Knox’s secret intelligence department in the Irish Office. The policemen changed. The
secret agents did not. They had watched thousands and thousands of Irish travellers take their first steps on to English soil. Some of them they stopped. Always they were female, usually between
twenty and thirty years old. ‘They’ll be young. They may well be pretty,’ their chief had told the two agents. ‘They will certainly look as innocent as newborn babes. For
God’s sake, don’t miss them.’
Siobhan McKenna had attached herself to a large family with children ranging from four to seventeen. She hoped she wouldn’t be noticed in that company. But something different about her
clothes, slightly superior to the dress of her companions, made her stand out to the watching eyes below. As the family came down, dragging the youngest reluctantly by the hand, the first agent
tapped the police sergeant on the shoulder.
‘That girl, there, with the black hair.’
‘Excuse me, miss,’ said the policeman, ‘these gentlemen here would like to ask you a few questions.’
The senior agent drew the girl away from the rest of the passengers. His companion stayed at his post, scanning every new arrival as they left the boat.
‘May I ask where you are going, miss?’ said the agent.
‘I’m going to London,’ replied the girl, smiling brightly at the agent. Smile at them, flirt with them, charm them, she remembered Michael Byrne’s instructions on
handling questions from the police.
‘And what is the purpose of your visit, miss?’
‘I’m going for an interview for a job at a school,’ said Siobhan McKenna, tossing her curls in the way that usually worked with the young men of Dublin.
‘Do you have any papers to back that up, miss?’ The agent gave nothing away. But he could feel his heart racing as he closed in on his prey.
‘I have a letter here from the Convent of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kensington,’ she said, taking a letter from her bag and handing it over with a smile.
Sister Ursula was delighted to hear from Miss McKenna. She looked forward to seeing her for an interview on Monday morning at eleven o’clock. She provided instructions on the easiest way
to reach the school.
‘Thank you very much, Miss McKenna,’ said the agent. ‘Have a good journey now, and the best of luck with the interview.’
The girl thought she was going to faint with the relief of it all. As she set off for the train to London she was too elated to look behind her. Twenty yards behind, the other agent was
following her every step.
‘I don’t want the messengers,’ Knox had told his agents, ‘I want to know where they are going, who they are going to see. We don’t want the minnows in the pond, we
want the bloody sharks because at present we don’t know who they are. But the minnows can lead us to them. Then we will strike.’
The Prime Minister saw Rosebery and Powerscourt in the upstairs drawing room in 10 Downing Street. He had grown old in office. He had also expanded from fifteen stone at the
start of his administration to over seventeen stone at the time of the Jubilee. He blamed the lack of time for exercise. The Prime Minister, unlike many of his opponents, did not believe that the
function of politics was to make the world a better place, to be constantly bringing schemes for improvement in the nation’s life. He believed that change was almost always bad, that it
should, wherever possible, be resisted, that when necessary some small concessions might have to be made for the purposes of winning elections, but that was all.
‘I presume your business must be urgent, Rosebery,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Lord Powerscourt, good day to you. I can give you gentlemen fifteen minutes before I have to meet
a delegation of ministers from the Empire. New Zealand today, I think. There are so many of them who have to be seen.’
Rosebery sketched out the nature of their business. It took him just over six minutes. The Prime Minister made one note of only a few words on a piece of paper in front of him. Reading it upside
down Powerscourt could see that it said: ‘Monday, four million pounds + + +.’
‘That is the crux of the problem, Prime Minister,’ Rosebery concluded. ‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer is out of town. Mr William Burke, a leading City financier who knows the
situation, is talking to the Governor of the Bank of England this afternoon. Time is very short.’
The Prime Minister looked at them gravely, stroking the long black beard that flowed down on to his chest.
‘Thank you, Rosebery. Let me try to sum up the difficulties we face.’ Outside the windows they heard a series of carriages arriving. The New Zealanders had come early.
‘It is not and cannot be the business of Government to bail out financial concerns whose imprudence or wickedness has left them unable to meet their obligations. I do not need to tell you,
Rosebery, the outcry that would erupt in the House of Commons if members felt that taxpayers’ money was being used for these purposes.’
There was a knock on the door.
‘The New Zealand delegation is waiting for you, Prime Minister,’ said the private secretary.
‘They’re early, for God’s sake,’ growled the Prime Minister. ‘I shall be with them in five or ten minutes. Give them some tea, show them round the bloody building,
just give me a little time.’
The private secretary backed quickly out of the room.
‘In one way this business is very like Barings,’ the Prime Minister went on. ‘I myself played a little part in the resolution of that crisis. But this time there is a
difference. Barings was saved by a rescue package put together in the full glare of publicity. The newspapers were full of it for weeks. We cannot afford any publicity at all at the present time,
not one word, not one paragraph. The effect would be devastating.’ The Prime Minister nodded towards the presence of the invisible New Zealand delegation who could be heard clattering around
the building.
‘An earlier Chancellor, Powerscourt, told me once that he had conducted an experiment in the speed of rumour in this great city of ours. It took about five hours to get round the Foreign
Office. It took three hours to get round the House of Commons. But it took less than half an hour to get round the City of London. Maybe it’s because they deal in little else over there. But
if word ever got out, then the damage this German person wants to cause would have been done. We cannot let that happen. We cannot.’
Powerscourt saw from the clock on the wall that their interview had lasted nearly twenty minutes.
‘You say this banker fellow is with the Governor this afternoon?’ said the Prime Minister.
‘So we believe, Prime Minister,’ said Rosebery.
‘Then we must all meet again early this evening. I might be able to avoid another of these damned receptions. Perhaps I shall be indisposed. Might I suggest that we reconvene, with Mr
Burke and the Governor, here at seven o’clock. And pray give some thought to how we smuggle four million pounds into the coffers of Harrison’s Bank before Monday. I must go and make
conversation with these New Zealanders. Bloody sheep, I expect.’
It was nearly five o’clock when Sophie Williams finally reached Markham Square.
‘You must be Miss Williams,’ said Lady Lucy, as the girl was shown into the Powerscourt drawing room. ‘How very kind of you to call.’
‘How do you do, Lady Powerscourt, how very kind of you to invite me here after all the trouble Richard has caused everybody.’ Sophie was smiling at her new friend.
‘Not at all,’ said Lady Lucy, smiling back at the young teacher. ‘But it’s Richard you’ll be wanting to see, Miss Williams, I’m sure.’
‘Is he all right, Lady Powerscourt? He’s not hurt, is he?’
‘He’s fine, just fine, a few bruises here and there.’ Lady Lucy spoke as if a few bruises were a regular part of a banker’s daily life. ‘At this moment he’s
closeted with Mr Burke, who you know, upstairs. I’ll just go and bring him down. Would you like some tea?’
‘That would be very kind, Lady Powerscourt,’ said Sophie, ‘it’s a long way from North London.’
Lady Lucy departed upstairs to see her brother-in-law. As Richard Martin made his way downstairs she had a brief conversation with William Burke.
‘William,’ she said firmly, ‘whatever happens, however much the nation is in peril, you are to stay here for the next half-hour. If, by any chance, you have to leave, please do
not go into the drawing room.’
‘Here I am,’ said Burke plaintively, ‘trying to resolve great affairs of finance that endanger the future prosperity of this country, and you tell me I cannot go in to your
drawing room for half an hour?’
Lady Lucy smiled again. ‘Affairs of the heart, William, are at least as important as affairs of state, particularly when the people involved are young.’
Sophie had just time to notice a copy of
Jude the Obscure
lying on a side table when Richard appeared.
‘Hello, Sophie,’ he said shyly. He thought she looked perfectly at home in this luxurious house.
‘Richard,’ replied Sophie, ‘I am so pleased to see you all in one piece again.’
He told her of his adventures, of his incarceration in the summerhouse at Blackwater, the last-minute rescue, the desperate flight down the Thames and the early morning journey to Markham
Square.
‘And there’s another thing, Sophie,’ he went on. ‘Mr Burke has offered me a job in his bank. It pays a little more than I was getting at Harrison’s.’
Sophie felt that insufficient attention had been paid to her own role in the rescue of Richard Martin. ‘It’s just as well I went to call on Mr Burke the other afternoon,
Richard,’ she said firmly. ‘If I hadn’t, you might still be locked up down there by that funny lake.’
She didn’t say that she had broken down in tears, but Mr Burke had already told Richard that. Sophie felt that her relations with Richard must be on a new footing now. She stood up and
went to the window. Maybe we always have to take the initiative, she thought. Maybe these feeble men would never do anything if women didn’t give them a lead.
‘Richard . . .’ She turned back to face him, her eyes dancing. ‘Richard, give me a kiss.’
The Governor of the Bank of England was a very worried man. He rubbed his ample stomach as if for reassurance. He fidgeted with his small beard. His eyes flickered restlessly
round the room.
Burke had told Powerscourt before the evening meeting that the Governor was not facing up to the crisis well.
‘He’s never seen anything like this in his whole life, Francis. His only idea of a commercial crisis is two bad tea harvests in a row. Even then he probably had enough of the stuff
stockpiled somewhere to raise his prices and make a killing. But of bankers and bankers’ follies he has no idea, no idea at all. I fear he will not serve the City well tonight.’
The Prime Minister, fresh from his conference with the New Zealanders, looked tired. By seven o’clock in the evening he had normally fled by train back to his beloved Hatfield. Rosebery
looked anxious. Powerscourt wondered how much money Rosebery and the Prime Minister would lose personally if there was a great crash in the City. Burke had put on a clean shirt for the occasion,
remarking to his wife that one might as well go to Armageddon in a fit state to meet God or the Devil.
The Prime Minister called the meeting to order. They were seated at a small square table in the study of Number 10 Downing Street. The Governor was on the Prime Minister’s left, with Burke
on his far side. Rosebery and Powerscourt, representing forces other than Mammon, were on the other flank, Powerscourt feeling slightly out of place.
‘Very well,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I hope we can find a way out of this sorry imbroglio this evening. Governor, what do you have to report?’
The Governor was breathing fast. His fingers beat a small tattoo on the table as he spoke.
‘I believe Lord Rosebery has already acquainted you with the facts, Prime Minister. The position, I understand, is more serious than we first thought. As well as the Latin American loan
obligations, there are a number of bills due next week, amounting to another million pounds, bringing the total obligation to five million pounds. We believe that the total available capital of
Harrison’s Bank at present is less than one hundred thousand pounds. The rest of it has been transferred abroad. I do not have to tell you, Prime Minister, that our hands are tied. If we
approach any of the private or joint stock banks in the City for assistance, I believe they would refuse. Nobody liked the Harrisons. The Bank of England’s total reserve at the present time
is just over one million pounds. We cannot effect a rescue. We cannot try to mount a combined operation, even if that were likely to succeed. The only solution,’ the Governor looked
desperately at the Prime Minister, ‘is to let Harrison’s Bank fail, with all that means. Or for the Government itself to intervene.’
The Prime Minister looked at the Governor as he might have looked at the senior steward on his estates, bringing him news of a bad harvest.
‘I see, Governor. Mr Burke, let me ask you two questions. If a combined rescue operation were attempted, what in your opinion would be the chances of success? And what would be the chances
of keeping it secret?’
Burke paused for a moment before he replied. ‘Let me answer your questions in reverse order, Prime Minister. I do not believe it would be possible to keep such an operation secret, were it
to be mounted. Too many people, too many boards of directors would have to be consulted. I do not believe the secret could be kept for as long as twenty-four hours. As to your first point, people
are prepared to rally round, to pass the hat if you like, for one of their own, for people they like. It is an almost indefinable thing in the City. People who have been to the same school or
belong to the same clubs will always have a sense of fellow feeling with their own kind. The Harrisons were outsiders. They were tolerated, but not welcomed. Some of our foreign bankers have made
every effort to wrap themselves in the garments of Englishness, if I may put it that way. They join the clubs, they hunt or shoot with their colleagues in the financial world. They try to become
insiders. The Harrisons were outsiders, necessary outsiders probably, performing a useful function in the business life of the financial community, but not really belonging. I do not believe anyone
would lift a finger to save them.’